1. Field of the Invention
The present invention concerns a cartridge for handling and transport of a fluid (liquid or gaseous substance), as well as a system for handling a fluid using such a cartridge. The invention concerns in particular a cartridge for handling a medical fluid as well as an analysis device to examine medically relevant properties of a fluid using such a cartridge.
2. Description of the Prior Art
In medical diagnostics, a number of examinations are implemented on liquids or gases (fluids), for example blood, urine, saliva, gastric juices, or respiratory air. The examinations can provide the analysis of widely varied parameters of chemical, microbiological, or physical properties. In addition to the ascertainment of measurements such as the pH value, the content of particular chemical elements or compounds, or the determination of the bacteria count, microbiological analysis methods play an increasingly larger role. These frequently have as a goal the electrochemical detection of nucleotide sequences that can indicate genetic aberrations or the existence of pathogenic bacteria or viruses. The detection of nucleotide bases is normally based on a two-stage method, in the first step of which DNA fragments present in the fluid are reproduced multiple times, in order to increase the probability of detection for the actual detection in the second step. Since genetic contamination is also thereby multiplied, this method poses particularly high demands on the cleanliness of the procedural apparatuses.
The analysis of fluids also plays a large role in chemical and biochemical analysis techniques. Such methods can be of great importance in chemical laboratories, in industry, in environmental protection, or the production of food. Depending on the field of application, particular requirements can be made on the purity of receptacles for the implementation of the analysis method.
In addition to handling for the purpose of examination (wherein handling is primarily understood as dosing), the handling of fluids also can be necessary with regard to industrial or food industrial applications, where frequently it means storage and transport first. In particular in large industrial application measures, immense numbers of handling events can ensue for individual liquid or gas quantities.
While the handling of fluids under everyday conditions poses no particular problem, high numbers of handling events or high requirements of a particular degree of purity entail substantially large financial and handling-technical expenditure. The need for extreme cleanliness of the receptacles requires a number of individual cleaning steps with correspondingly high labor expenditure. The handling and dosing of fluids in large numbers of handling events and high numbers of individual quantity units can be achieved only with a high degree of technical automation of the devices involved.
If high requirements as to purity and handling coincide with high handling high numbers of units, the one-time use of the equipment has heretofore been uneconomical, and in addition the need for a large personnel staff is inevitable, due to the high price of the complex devices for handling and for cleaning. Even when it is only large numbers of handling events that occur, a significant handling burden already exists that cannot be maintained. For example, even a modest reduction in the number of handling steps that are serially implemented in a central medical or chemical analysis laboratory for a number of small customers, or the large measures in a chemical or food industrial production, leads to savings of labor and time in significant amounts.
The large number of handling events with discrete fluid quantities can be implemented with a large number of substance containers, also called cartridges. A disadvantage, however, is that the cartridges must be individually handled in similarly large numbers, and devices provided for this use must be installed. Particular requirements as to logistics or cleanliness can be fulfilled with a large number of cartridges, if these are sufficiently advantageous that they can be economically used as one-time products. Here there is the additional problem that, in spite of advantageous costs, handling expenditure should be minimized.